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Brian Warwicker Partnership plc, over the past 35 years, has
designed many energy efficient and sustainable buildings. This guide
shares our experience in how to create buildings that are also cleaner
and healthier for occupants and the environment.
Remember, a well-designed ‘green’ building can be
cheaper to build and operate throughout its lifetime.
Our green rating illustrates that finding a greener
alternative doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. The higher our
green rating, the more sustainable.
Did you know?
A sustainable future is more than just today’s
buzzword, but a concept we all have to start acting on. Consider that:
An average three bedroom house uses around 24,000 kWh and emits around 5.5 tonnes of CO2 per year. This is the equivalent
of driving 15,000
miles in an
average car.
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A typical 5,000 m2 air conditioned office building
uses around 1,000,000
kWh and emits
around 400 tonnes of
CO2 per year. This
is equivalent of flying around 840,000
miles or taking 120 return trips between London and New York.
1 Renewable energy
Nature provides us with the sun, sea, wind, earth,
rivers and plants. These natural resources contain energy that is freely
available and do not require the burning of fossil fuels to produce
power.
The sun provides solar energy, the sea provides wave
energy, the wind can turn a rotor, the earth is an energy store, water
that flows from a river can turn a turbine and plant material can be
combusted. We just need to be able to collect this energy and convert it
into a useable form.
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green
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2 Rainwater harvesting
The collection of rainwater into a tank, rather than
letting it go straight into the drainage system, allows the water to be
used for flushing toilets. This reduces the amount of incoming mains
water used, and provides attenuation to limit the rate at which the
surface water is discharged into the drainage system.
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3 Ground source heat pumps
The ground stores massive amounts of low level energy.
An electricity driven heat pump can convert this stored energy to a
useful level to provide heating.
Pipes are buried in the ground, either vertically or
horizontally to collect the energy. Water is then passed through them so
that they act as a heat exchanger. The heat pump absorbs this energy and
adds its electrical energy to achieve a high level of efficiency.
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green
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